Return to Surthay
by Kyn
Summary: Set in Rasheman and Thay almost forty years prior to the events of Baldur's Gate. The nuanced and witchy lives of a cross-dressing Thayvian mageling and his Wychlaran mentor. Sequel to 'Surthay.'
1. Homen Nadezdha Odesseiron

Morning light fell upon the trees in a gentle hush. It trickled between the leaves, and dripped—golden—downward to illuminate the brown and yellow fabric, and the rise and fall of sleeping breaths. Light swelled, and grew, and the sky grew blue in contrast to it. Beneath, the young man stirred, and yawned, and stretched.

"Good morning," he laughed. The sky was azure. He smiled up into it, and then leaned back and crossed his arms behind his head. Mushi slowly surfaced beside him, blinking sleepily and heaving a much smaller little yawn. He grinned at her dishevelment. She gave him a stink-eye. He winked. She stuck her tongue out. He grinned more and reached out to give her his hand, that she might wrap her tail about the fingers. "I told you it was crazy, but what did you say? 'Do it!' 'Do it!'"

She made faces and did little air quotes in the air with her fins in mockery of him, and he laughed and gathered her close to cuddle and to pet her. "You are a terrible influence on me, Miss Mushi. It's my favorite part of you." She tried to do her best maniacally evil impression; but it failed horribly, and instead she just ended up rolling about in his arms blowing bubbles and giggling.

He checked on his shoulder wound and found nothing amiss. Content, he leaned back into the tree. Perhaps a few more hours of nap were in order. Mushi gave another yawn of agreement.

"HOMEN NADEZDHA ODESSEIRON!" A voice roared through Orchards. "When I find thee-!"

Homen leaped to his feet so quickly he almost fell clear out of the tree. Mushi eeped. He staggered to grab hold of a branch, and quickly climbed and swung and strategically dropped his way down from the canopy. Sheilaktar's oaths and threats grew louder and louder as he passed briefly through fey-wild vines spread across gigantic blue logs, and then arrived several miles to the east and just above ground-level.

"-I am going to tear thee a new-!"

"I'm right here, Senneta!" Homen announced from behind, and Sheilaktar spun about to find him sitting down on a branch at head-level. He waved and grinned. Grinned! Twenty-two years old now, and not so young; Homen yet grinned like the very definition of a boyish knave. He'd truly come into his own through the forest, and the changes it had worked on him were manifold. She narrowed her eyes.

"Where have you _been_?" she demanded in a low growl. "My birds spoke of an injury! We have an appointment this very evening, an appointment thou hast known about for weeks in advance, and thou have been running amok in the trees with no vocal alteration, no transmutation, no makeup; no defense of thy true nature whatsoever other than a flimsy dress-!"

"And a corset and petticoats," he reminded her, and did not point out at all that she'd been using his full name in calling for him.

"And a corset and petticoats!" she roared, stomping forward. "Thou will show me that shoulder at once!"

"It's fine, I'm fine," he told her, but dutifully slipped down from the branch and presented himself for inspection. She pulled aside the bandages and sniffed at the injury, as he again tried to assure her that he was fine. His corset had done the work of a hauberk, protecting him from what otherwise might have turned out to be quite the life-threatening stab-wound.

"A sword! Where and in what manner were thou confronted by iron in this forest!?"

"Oh I can't say that," he protested. "Mushi and I were engaged in the sacred and noble art of ironic pranking and it would be breaking a sacred pixie covenant to 'tell!'"

"Sacred pixie-!" She grabbed him fiercely by the arms and shook him. "This is no time, and I am violently cross with thee." She hugged him. "Just as I was violently worried for thee, fool boy. But again, this is no time." She released and glared at him again. "You must be readied immediately!"

"What? What is the rush?" Mushi mimicked his confusion.

"Yhelbruna is coming. Here. And she has moved the appointment up to a 'luncheon with tea!'"

Homen's and Mushi's eyes went round, and the latter froze in horror. "I need my paints! My amulet! I need to do my hair!"

"I need _breakfast_!" his Hathran witch snarled. "We are to get back at once and to obtain all of these things, before I kill someone, and if that old bitch imposes on me ever again-!"

"You need breakfast!" Homen agreed, and then grabbed her by the arm and towed her briskly off back towards the cottage.


	2. Ire

"Sheilaktar is going to be very confused and highly irate," Nythra speculated wryly. "I believe the amount of times anyone has ever 'dropped in' on her amounts to a grand total of zero, and with good reason."

Yhelbruna laughed. "Just the way we need her, then: off balance. She's been trying to get us to overlook this for far too long."

"She is not so amenable when she is irate!" Nythra laughed.

"Well I suppose this plan does hinge on Nadezdha's magical ability to curb that aforementioned 'ire' a bit," Yhelbruna winked.

"Ah, she is our magical, anti-inflammatory, necromancer-assuaging, ex-Thayvian pixie."

It was late spring in the Eastern Orchards, and pink blossoms drifted by the million-fold through the forest's dark and foreboding passages. They glinted in slanted yellow sunbeams, and gathered in piles about the roots of gnarled and enormous trees. Toadstools sat fat and cheery in every alcove, grasshoppers fiddled, and birds sang. High above, in the branches but below the shelter of the canopy, yellow will-o-wisps of neutral temperament ghosted playfully about in long lines, like decorative candles.

As the old saying went: The Eastern Orchards were named for their fruit, not their temperament. It was not a place for stargazing children or lonely woodsmen to be caught out come dusk, when the shadows started to grow long and the hungry things all began to stir.

Nythra of Seven Rivers was a full-fledged Hathran, and one of only two hundred equally capable women-mages, druids, and clerics-who governed Rasheman and saw to the needs of its people and spirit beasts. But here, in the Orchards, she knew well to be cowed. This forest did not care about a person's outside skills, or how cleverly one might invoke elemental water. This forest cared only for more primal wisdoms than that, and a person either had a... a knack for that, or they didn't. Nythra didn't.

She stuck close to Yhelbruna's side, trusting in the Orthlor-her mentor and master-to know the way.

"Is it the trees you fear?" the older woman teased her. "Or the dire rats and giant centipedes which nest in the fallen logs?"

"This forest wishes to swallow its visitors and keep them," Nythra strongly suspected. "Stray one tree to the left or one tree to the right, and backtracking will suddenly yield no exit..."

"She is the least forgiving forest of Rasheman," the Orthlor agreed, "but you musn't fear her so. Couple humility with patience, and breathe until you find a calm head. There is a playfulness to her riddles that clever and lighthearted children learn from each day; and rangers rely on her for fox pelts and venison."

"Aye, but many a story ends up with a hapless innocent following a wisp off a cliff and into a swamp and a hagspawn's belly," Nythra argued. "No, I've no head for her mysteries. I shall leave acquiring such expertise to Nadezdha; only so many people have what it takes to go frolicking amid carnivorous horses and mushroom circles. She's braver than I, and somehow makes it all work despite having none of Sheilaktar's grimness. "

"Nadezdha's affinity for the faewild, if it is genuine, is something you and I should like to see firsthand. You still scheme to ask her for a little tour of the forest?"

Nythra sighed. "And she shall show off something exciting for me, I am sure of it, which is making my stomach churn in terror and anticipation." She stared off into the horrible unknown for a moment and then suddenly winked at her mentor. "But yes. Absolutely. I shall not miss it for the world. So I can only blame myself if I end up enscorcelled and eaten by something some evening."

"Well then, should this come to pass, I shall make every effort to extract you from the belly of whatever has dined on you," Yhelbruna drawled. "Though if you have a say in the matter I must recommend you be swallowed whole, as if you end up in too many pieces I may need to enlist Sheilaktar's help on the matter..."

Nythra groaned.


	3. A Mask one Likes

No amount of self-berating could change the fact that Nadezdha ought to have redone her hair and paints _yesterday_ , immediately after her bath, and ought not have gone frolicking with pixies. No matter how fun it had been. It had been really fun, it was sort of hard to regret that. But now they were in a rush.

"Stop feeding Nusidne sweetened pears when you think I am not looking! She had already had two breakfasts, and is getting portly under thy absurdly generous treat-giving regiment!"

Nadezdha, who was putting her weaves and beads and feathers in with frantic energy, shot a wry glance over to where his Hathran had cleared a table and started arranging herbs to protect the cottage in preparation for the meeting. She was looking considerably less grumpy as she finished up her oatmeal. The pears had only ever been opened in the first place because he'd put some into the porridge for her; and a good coincidence that was, because happy familiars did make for secretly happier witches. "I can't help it, have you seen her begging face?"

"I have, and I summarily dismiss it with the indifference which I levy onto everyone and everything else," Sheilaktar groused, which was all the more amusing because of how true and/or untrue it could be at times. "Don thine amulet before thou forgets."

Nadezdha dropped her brush and drew out the cloisonne medallion from a drawn in her desk. She quickly undid the shoulder ties of her corset that she might slip it beneath the bosom. Hmm, and this was as as good an opportunity as any to change the dressing on her shoulder. "Done." The amulet had of course turned 'her' wry tenor into that larkish soprano Sheilaktar so loved.

"Mother above us," Sheilaktar coughed into her oatmeal and then grinned wolfishly. "Years it's been, and still I don't think I will ever quite grow used to that. I am sealing the place. I don't want Yhelbruna leaving any _eyes_ or _ears_ behind." They heard a bump that nearly made Nadezdha leap out of her chair, but it was only the Nana The Goat, leaping off of the roof in pursuit of some tender sprig of garden weed. She normally wasn't allowed in the garden, not without some kind of magical oversight, but Sheilaktar had ensorcelled her in some manner or another to enlist her yard-keeping portfolio.

"Give not thine self away with nervousness," Sheilaktar scolded. "And hurry up!

"Well I'm sorry some of us just can't _roll out of bed_ like angry disheveled dragons in the morning, throw on a cloak of crow feathers and call that dressed! _Some_ of us have to actually work to look half the fabulous!"

Sheilaktar muttered to herself as she lit a bundle of sage and protecting herbs that would enforce her authority over the cottage. She smudged the room. Mushi flit about all excitedly; they'd never had a visitor before, and _someone_ had to be excited about it if the rest of them wouldn't be...!

Nadezdha finalized her feather count and then scrabbled for her paints. She mixed the pitch on one pallet and the white titanium with a fixative on the other, and scooped up her little glass mirror. She turned the eyes hawkish or lupine by painting black around the lids, out to the brow at the side, and down the inline of the nose. She painted white around that, and down the nose and over the whole of the face, and blushed it with rose pink, and employed speckles of gold and green to turn it into something more tribal, fae, _primitive_. She painted the lips a dark, bold red.

"Tch," Sheilaktar came up and eyeballed her. Nadezdha kept painting; they were on a tight time-table. "That look thou is cultivating grows ever more ridiculous with each new iteration."

"And better to be _odd_ than _reviled_ ," Nadezdha retorted. "Am I at least pretty?" She batted her eyes at her mentor.

"Thou art more feminine looking than myself, Yhelbruna, Nythra, the majority of all Wychlaran, and at least half of the Summer Fairy Court," she growled. But then she eyed him/her up and down as if taking a fresh perspective. "Thou has stuck with that particular look for awhile now."

"I like this face," Nadezdha gave a cheeky grin. "It's a way I can oust the label of 'That Thayvian Girl' in favor of something else, like 'That Girl Who Paints Herself Like a Swan.' Which, given our reverence for animals and the fact that all Hathran wear masks, is infinitely preferable despite being ever-so-slightly peculiar or vain-looking."

"Thou art certainly cultivating the appearance of vanity," Sheilaktar muttered. "Or succumbing to _actual_ vanity, I cannot be sure which." She patted Nadezdha's shoulders, and pressed a kiss into the top of her head. "Be _wise_ today. I will go and wait for our company, in the event thou art not quite finished betime they arrive."

Homen smiled, lifting his head into the attention. Rare were Sheilaktar's displays of affection...! "Yes, _Senne_ -oh?"

Mushi was frantically waving her arms, attempting to communicate something she thought might be an emergency. Nadezdha frowned. Sheilaktar straightened thoughtfully. The two—Hathran and student—peered at Mushi, blinked at one another, thought about Sheilaktar's proposed course of action, and then simultaneously realized that Homen's disguise was _so_ spectacular and complete that they had very nearly forgotten to _actually_ transform him into a woman.

"Thy familiar is more on point than we are," Sheilaktar sighed with a rub of her brow, and a glance at where Nudisne was staring mournfully at a jar of fruit. "I am ever so slightly jealous, but then it may just be that I am not a morning person."


	4. Errors in Translation

'Nadezdha' came out to join her at the cottage gate whilst they waited. Sheilaktar glanced at her. Sometimes it made her laugh, knowing that behind this mask, this beautiful and exotic girl, was in truth a knavish _boy_. Not a particularly flimsy boy either, not anymore. Homen had grown into a tall and athletic young man.

'Young man.' Not 'boy,' not any longer. He'd been on the cusp of adulthood when he'd first washed up upon her doorstep like a drowned rat, and it had been _five years_ , and now he was anything but a child. No matter how cute he-or-she-or-whatever looked in that dress.

Where had the time gone?

The minutes stretched by. The weather was starting to turn comfortable, and Nadezdha was in tights instead of trousers. She sat on the garden fence, and kicked blithely at nothing. Sheilaktar rolled her eyes. Nadezdha winked.

"So, I've been meaning to ask thee something," Sheilaktar began. "Both in general, and about Nythra in specific. Thou have been, eh, bosom friends for quite some time now." That was true. The two always ended up sitting together, sharing pastries and holding hands.

"We have," her pupil agreed. "We should have an anniversary party."

"Thou seem mutually touchy. Art thou attracted to her?"

Nadezdha was so silent that Shielaktar presumed she'd hit the nail on the head.

"If there is any girl who has caught more than just thine idle fancy, whom thou cultivates deeper feelings for, thou should speak to me of it before anything has the chance to go wrong." She turned and then blinked, for the Thay-child's expression was not guilt but rather estrangement. He looked at Sheilaktar as if the necromancer had abruptly sprouted two heads. "What did I say to evoke this bewilderment? Thou hast given up your liking of women?"

"I am not particularly attracted to Nythra," Homen told her in a curiously repressed monotone, or as if refraining from emphasizing the wrong word of the claim.

Sheilaktar raised a brow. Then she tilted her cheek up and eyed him suspiciously. "Who, then?"

The imp continued to stare at her, and Sheilaktar thought to prod this mystery further, but just then one of the hummingbirds darted up to inform her that Yhelbruna was nearby. She straightened, and sure enough the Orthlor soon appeared. She had with her Nythra of Seven Rivers, of course, for no mater how old Nythra grew it seemed she would ever be the Eldest's _Little Red Robin_.

Nadezdha hopped off the fence immediately and waved to them, and Nythra ran ahead to meet her. The two 'girls' shared a hug. "Nadezdha! Are you getting taller again? Didn't I forbid that?" Nythra tugged a braid.

"I don't know. Could it be that you are shrinking from advanced age?"

"Do you wear that same makeup _every day_?"

" _No_ ," Nadezdha dismissed this as absurd. "Sometimes I throw the whole formula out the window and simply slather the upper part of my face in colored glitter and and call it a day. Well and maple leaves, of course, I'm not some heathen."

Nythra was bent over double laughing betimes Yhelbruna even got there and gave a respectful greeting nod to Sheilaktar.

"Hello, my Dusk Dragon. I'm sorry to impose."

"I'm sure thou are," Sheilaktar muttered with a glance towards the (slightly) younger generation.

An awkward moment passed. Yhelbruna gave a little cough. "May we come in?" the illustrious Orthlor was forced to ask at last.

"Well. Thou hast already come all the way here," the necromancer assessed. "So I suppose it would be a waste of all our time and energy if thou did not." And with that she turned about and re-entered the cottage grounds.

"Who'd like some tea?" Nadezdha asked with a disarming smile towards Yhelbruna and expression that most probably read: 'please forgive my master.' "Blueberry? Jasmine?"

"Jasmine would be lovely, thank you dear."


	5. Faithful Parrot

'Nadezdha' came out to join her at the cottage gate whilst they waited. Sheilaktar glanced at her. Sometimes it made her laugh, knowing that behind this mask, this beautiful and exotic girl, was in truth a knavish _boy_. Not a particularly flimsy boy either, not anymore. Homen had grown into a tall and athletic young man.

'Young man.' Not 'boy,' not any longer. He'd been on the cusp of adulthood when he'd first washed up upon her doorstep like a drowned rat, and it had been _five years_ , and now he was anything but a child. No matter how cute he-or-she-or-whatever looked in that dress.

Where had the time gone?

The minutes stretched by. The weather was starting to turn comfortable, and Nadezdha was in tights instead of trousers. She sat on the garden fence, and kicked blithely at nothing. Sheilaktar rolled her eyes. Nadezdha winked.

"So, I've been meaning to ask thee something," Sheilaktar began. "Both in general, and about Nythra in specific. Thou have been, eh, bosom friends for quite some time now." That was true. The two always ended up sitting together, sharing pastries and holding hands.

"We have," her pupil agreed wryly. "Is there some sort of anniversary party one ought to throw?"

"Thou seem mutually touchy. Art thou attracted to her?"

Nadezdha was so silent that Shielaktar presumed she'd hit the nail on the head.

"If there is any girl who has caught more than just thine idle fancy, whom thou cultivates deeper feelings for, thou should speak to me of it before anything has the chance to go wrong." She turned and then blinked, for the Thay-child's expression was not guilt but rather estrangement. He looked at Sheilaktar as if the necromancer had abruptly sprouted two heads. "What did I say to evoke this bewilderment? Thou hast given up your liking of women?"

"I am not particularly attracted to Nythra," Homen told her in a curiously repressed monotone, or as if refraining from emphasizing the wrong word of the claim.

Sheilaktar raised a brow. Then she tilted her cheek up and eyed him suspiciously. "Someone else, then?"

* * *

Sheilaktar's cottage had a suspicious tendency to _appear_ when one rounded this corner or that, but it always looked a gem of rustic country life in an otherwise foreboding wood. Nythra smiled to see it, and smiled more when she saw Sheilaktar and her companion waiting for them at the garden gate. Nadezdha was veritably hopping in place, and Nythra ran ahead to meet her.

The two girls hugged! "Nadezdha! Why do you keep getting _taller_!? Didn't I forbid that?" She tugged a braid.

"Perhaps I am not! Could it be that you are shrinking from advanced age?"

Egads! This was unfair, for though Nythra was fast approaching her thirties she made every effort to pretend otherwise. "Well I'd never! Do you wear makeup _every single day_?" she criticized.

" _No_ ," Nadezdha dismissed this as absurd. "Sometimes I throw the whole formula out the window and simply slather the upper part of my face in colored glitter and and call it a day. Well and maple leaves, of course, I'm not some heathen."

Nythra was bent over double laughing betimes Yhelbruna even got there and gave a respectful greeting nod to Sheilaktar.

"Hello, my Dusk Dragon. I'm sorry to impose."

"I'm sure thou are," Sheilaktar muttered with a glance towards the (slightly) younger generation.

An awkward moment passed. Yhelbruna gave a little cough. "May we come in?" the illustrious Orthlor was forced to ask at last.

"Well. Thou hast already come all the way here," the necromancer assessed. "So I suppose it would be a waste of all our time and energy if thou did not." And with that she turned about and re-entered the cottage grounds.

"Who'd like some tea?" Nadezdha asked with a disarming smile towards Yhelbruna and expression that most probably ought to read 'please forgive my master.' "Blueberry? Jasmine?"

"Jasmine would be lovely, thank you dear."

...

* * *

Nythra had never been invited inside Sheilaktar's little estate on social call or for any other reason before, though she had met the peculiar witch at the gate on many occasions: for several important missions against the Durthin, over negotiations with hags and fae, and on trips for important spell-components. But Sheilaktar was a private person.

Inside, the cascade of tiny bottles and sachets and numerous other objects all neatly packed away from floor to rafters to eaves was a sight to see. It certainly explained why the nearby villages all knew Sheilaktar as a herbalist first and a tamer of dark spirits almost as an aside. There were few books on these shelves, but the lore each tiny label and herb represented was tremendous, and reminded her just how _many topics_ Sheilaktar strove to master. She was doubtless her own sternest tutor.

"Would you believe that being her housekeeper is a full-time job?" Nadezdha whispered conspiratorially, and Nythra grinned. The former wove past the latter on her way to the stove, and poured that tea she'd promised everyone: Sheilaktar's blueberry, and everyone else's jasmine.

"I see solitude has not slowed your progress in academical pursuits, Dusk Dragon," Yhelbruna mused aloud. "I have heard men say your healing draughts can stave off afflictions worse than death."

"You presume solitude should hamper this? It gives me time to work. Tell me, Yhelbruna," Sheilaktar took her tea and settled into a chair draped with a dire bear fur. "What business aside from idle chatter brings thee _here_ on such short notice?"

The Orthor turned to her with a knowing smile. "I've come to recruit you, if possible. A Durthin bastion has proven unexpectedly sturdy and _loud_ to the north, and creeps alarmingly near Mulptan. We are facing at least a coven of Ice Hags, in addition to once-Sisters making ample use of blood and sexual sacrifice with spirits of darkness. We need your strong-arm."

"Thou hast invited me to battle before, Yhelbruna, and at times I have come; but never did that require thou _coming here_ on short notice. What is the special occasion? I do hope it is an _emergency_."

The smile did not leave the Orthlor's eyes. "I would speak with you alone," she explained.

"Is that so? Well." Sheilaktar glanced to the (slightly) younger generation. "Nadezdha? Did thou hear that?"

"I heard that I and Nythra should go and get terribly lost in the woods and meet all sort of wonderful carnivorous creature!" Nadezdha parroted extremely faithfully.

Sheilaktar waved her pupil off with permission to do just that. "Do apply thine usual flair for dramatics. Doubtless it is through her loyal robin that she intends to 'evaluate thine annual progress' regardless." She turned a dark stare back to Yhelbruna.

Nythra opened her mouth to say something in her own defense, but a blithe Nadezdha had already tugged her out the door.


End file.
